In this issue

• Calendar of Upcoming Events
• A personal message from Susan Rothenberg,
  Advisory Committee Member
• JCL’s new Reading Specialist - Joan Green
• Introducing new Advisory Committee Member Marilyn Nebenzahl
• Tutor Profile: Sally Schuman
• Tips for Tutors
• Looking Back at the 2005 Chanukah Book Drive Kickoff
• Terrific results from our Hurricane Katrina Book Drive!
• Thank You!

A personal message from Susan Rothenberg,
Advisory Committee Member

First Books

Recently we visited some young friends of ours who are the proud parents of an eight month old. As we usually do, we brought a gift of a book for the baby, choosing Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. When I said that I realized the book was a bit beyond her son, she said not necessarily; that when she reads her young son books, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, listening to the sound of her words and looking at the pictures. What a lucky child! Having books and being read to by his parents; learning to love books at an early age.

Too many children growing up in our country now don’t have the same opportunities. Too many of our children have neither books in their home, nor parents who read to them. In a study done by Courtney Smith, Rebecca Constantino and Stephen Krashen the number of books in homes was compared between three different communities — Beverly Hills, Watts and Compton. The average number of books in the homes in Beverly Hills was 199.2 as compared to Watts at 0.4 and Compton at 2.67. I would venture to say that the number of books in the homes of the children being served by JCL would be closer to Watts and Compton than Beverly Hills. Compounding the problem for our children is the lack of books in their school libraries as well. As volunteers, we try to ignite a love of reading, but we also need to help these children have easy access to books. This speaks to the importance of the JCL Book Drive.

In December, JCL launched our annual Book Drive at our literary afternoon at the JCC, during which Joshua Braff, local East Bay author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, read from his novel. Over eighty people joined us and brought 250 books. A follow-up mailing to tutors and donors allowed us to collect a total of 2000 books for schools in need. While I am truly thrilled by the number and generosity of our volunteers and supporters, I would like us to be able to see that each of the schools we served have at least that number in each of their libraries, and that each of the children we tutor have at least 20 books of their own.

I realize that my dream is not going to happen tomorrow, but if we all continue our efforts, we can move closer to making sure that we can build our school libraries so that the children we serve, and their schoolmates, have easy access to books. And beyond that, I would hope that each child we tutor goes home with at least one book a year. This one book won’t make up for the 198.2 books that aren’t in their home, but it may increase the number by 100% and that’s a good beginning.

JCL’s new Reading Specialist - Joan Green

JCL is pleased to introduce Joan Green as our Reading Specialist.

Joan received her BA from Smith College in Latin American Studies and speaks Spanish and Russian. She has lived and taught abroad both in LaPaz, Bolivia and Mexico City. Upon settling permanently in the Bay Area, Joan got a Master’s in Education in Reading and Bilingual Education from San Francisco State and started her career in public education. In San Francisco, she developed a Spanish Bilingual Reading Lab for Mission High School. On the Peninsula she spent many years teaching and managing programs in Language Development and Reading. She has been actively involved in training and professional development along with teaching and program management.

Joan is very enthusiastic about the role of JCL in enhancing reading at the elementary grades and is particularly interested in helping JCL develop a focus on preparation for reading in Kindergarten.

Joan will provide support to tutors by phone, email and in person. She will discuss your tutoring situation with you, explore ideas for tactics or materials and, if desired, meet with you—alone or with your student—as the situation dictates. Tutors should feel free to get in touch with her directly through the contact information below with any questions, issues or problems that arise concerning the reading process.

Office Email: jfgreen@jcrc.org

Introducing new Advisory Committee Member Marilyn Nebenzahl

The Jewish Coalition of Literacy welcomes longtime JCL supporter Marilyn Nebenzahl to the ranks of our Advisory Committee. Marilyn has an extensive background in education and is a prominent member of the San Francisco Jewish community.

Marilynís career has spanned from classroom teaching to high-level educational training. Originally from San Jose, she holds several teaching and education administration credentials and taught elementary school for more than 20 years. Marilyn has also been deeply involved in educational research, development of literacy and leadership curricula, school staff professional development, and teacher coaching for many years, in districts all over California.

Last but hardly least, for the past year Marilyn has volunteered her time and exceptional energy to creating all of the centerpieces for JCL's Centerpiece Project. We are fortunate to be welcoming Marilyn aboard!

Tutor Profile: Sally Schuman

Sally Schuman tutors at Monte Loma Elementary School in Mountain View. She has been a JCL volunteer since 2004. The profile below is in Sally’s own words, and we feel she expresses JCL’s mission beautifully.

Background
I am 58 years old, the mother of a 21-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. I am a California native, graduated from UC Santa Cruz in their “Pioneer Class” (1969) and before kids worked in publishing. I live in Palo Alto.

My husband, Stewart Kiritz, is a clinical psychologist; he is chief psychologist and director of training at Community Health Awareness. He has told me that there is a lot of evidence now that early intervention with children, from age 3 and on, is the most effective for keeping kids on a healthy life course, away from gangs and other negative choices. So I understand my JCL work as part of that larger effort that we all need to make, to help all our kids move toward a positive future. Literacy is a big part of that.

I got involved in JCL through my friend Natalie who was the reading specialist for JCL. When she told me about the program, it sounded like my kind of thing. Books and reading to children—what’s not to like? Also, it struck me right away that, in this time when there is so much argument in the world, from the micro level to the macro, from road rage, to City Hall bickering, to war—here was work one could do that was absolutely, 100% positive, meaningful. A win–win kind of job for all concerned. No politics!

Tutoring experience
I started with two first-graders in the spring of 2004. The following fall I started with six and before long had eight, mostly first-graders and a couple of second-graders. My teachers wanted their children to be with me for just a half an hour each time, not a full hour, so this made taking more kids very doable. Plus, I figured if I was getting myself prepared and down to the school for one or two children in a morning, why not for more?

From the beginning, my experience was very positive. I was feeling my way, of course, but I discovered that the tutoring was about more than just the reading and the books. It was, it is, about the relationship that develops between tutor and child. I think this is what made it start to be so satisfying for me. I could tell the children took pleasure in our time together. They saw it as something special that they got to do. The teachers didn’t give me much feedback for a while—they are so busy, so I tried to just do my thing and not bug them—but what they did tell me was positive.

This year I have four first graders and two second graders. One of the boys I have stayed with since he was in first grade. I love all the kids but I must admit this guy—I’ll call him Roy—is a personal favorite of mine. At first I thought he might be a hard nut to crack, so to speak. He seemed a bit wary and a bit tough. But one day, several weeks into the term, when I arrived at the classroom door to pick up my first “tutee,” this boy announced in a loud voice for the whole class to hear, “I love Tuesdays!” I guess that cinched it for me.

Memorable tutoring experiences
Last year I decided I wanted to connect with my kids more than just once a week. So it occurred to me that it would be fun to send each of them a postcard each week, after our session together. I began picking up postcards—of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Chinatown, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, whatever I could find—and writing one to each child. I would write about something that had happened during our time together, something about the books we had read, or our conversation. Or I would tell them a funny story, or something about the picture on the postcard. And I sent the postcards to them at school, through the U.S. mail. I wanted them to see that reading and writing don’t just take place in classrooms but in other interesting places, too. Plus, it’s fun to get a postcard with a handwritten message. Everybody likes that, especially in these computer-dominated days. Sometimes I can’t find any new postcards to buy, so I make some original ones using stickers and drawing pictures. The kids seem to really love these. You can get pretty creative on a postcard and it still seems to get delivered in the mail. Sometimes I have put little tabs that say, “Lift here” with a special message inside, that sort of thing.

So one day when I had just started sending the postcards, this same little guy, Roy, the one I thought was kind of tough, said to me as I was leaving the classroom: “I bet I know what you’re gonna do.” I said, “What? What am I gonna do?” He looked sort of serious, and I thought maybe he had a criticism or negative comment. He said, looking me right in the eye: “I bet you’re gonna send me another postcard!”

And I said, “Yes, indeed, I sure am! ” He beamed at me and went back to his desk. I really felt that I had connected with him. Several of the kids told me they were keeping all the postcards, and that year at the holidays I gave each child a little photo album that was just the right size for their postcards. So that’s been fun.

Memorable? One day I was reading Margaret Wise Brown’s Little Fur Family to a first grade girl. (The kids love this book—it has a fur jacket!) You know Margaret Wise Brown uses language in a very creative and sometimes eccentric way. There is a line where she writes something like this: “And the little fur child walked on through the dark and sunny woods.”

And my little tutor child turned to me and said, “That’s an oxymoron! ‘Dark and sunny woods’ is an oxymoron!” She may have been a bit behind in her reading skills and had a little trouble paying attention in class, I guess, but obviously somebody at home was talking to her about words! That was fun. Sadly, a number of my kids seem much more deprived, culturally, as if they do not get read to much, or perhaps even talked to much. But, then, that’s why I am there…

Sometimes it seems to me that this tutoring is as much for me as for the children—I get such a warm reception from them all—and even from kids I don’t tutor who recognize me as that book lady. Kids I don’t know wave and say “Hi, Sally!” Sometimes one of them will come up and ask me for some help with a reading or math problem, just, I think, to try to have a little time with me. It’s lovely. I admit I love first and second graders because—to put it bluntly—they don’t have attitude. Sometimes by third grade attitude has set in, and it can be harder to deal with. So I am lucky—I get all these sweet ones before the world has hardened them!

I think I am being useful there. I believe in that phrase on the new JCL brochure: “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” I strongly believe, first of all, in the value of literacy and reading of all kinds, but also that one person can tip the balance for a child in favor of a positive life track. I hope I might be doing that through my tutoring.

Other JCL activities
I just believe so thoroughly in the purpose of JCL it is easy to want to help. I have done a little personal fundraising for JCL, and I’ve helped with a bit of office work. I am happy to do those things, but the tutoring itself is my favorite part. I am not really a committee person, a meeting person, or a natural-born fundraiser, but I am happy to be a worker bee at the worker-bee tasks that come along. I am a lead tutor but have not done a huge amount in that position yet. We’ll see how that develops over time. I do have a sense, I believe, of how to make a success of the tutoring experience, so perhaps that makes me a pretty good lead tutor.

Getting others involved
I would say, Try it! You will probably love it. Of course, not everyone will find it to be such a perfect match as I have. But anyone who sees himself or herself being “the world” to one child, or helping move one child in a positive direction through reading and literacy has got to check it out.

I am not inclined to try to persuade people to do any particular sort of volunteer work. I like to invite. So I just tell people about my wonderful experience, and I hope and believe that my enthusiasm is contagious. A lot of people would not only enjoy but probably actually need to do something this satisfying. It is one of the secrets of a happy life, to do a good thing on a regular basis for other people. And JCL provides that opportunity.

Mostly, I think that if somebody loves the tutoring and believes in JCL, then working in other aspects of the organization might just come naturally. People understand that the organization needs other kinds of help, too— administrative, educational, and financial. I think people have to find volunteer work that really fits for them, or else it doesn’t really pan out either for them or for the organization.

Thank you, Sally! You take tutoring to a whole new level!

Tips for Tutors

by Joan Green, JCL Reading Specialist

Greetings, tutors. I am happy I’m in a position to encourage your significant work and hope I can provide the support you need when you want it. Right now let’s focus on one aspect of the reading process that contributes a great deal to successful reading — and that is FLUENCY. A major goal for our students is to develop reading fluency. Fluency and comprehension really go hand-in-hand and we’ll examine them both, but let’s look at fluency first.

Fluency is the ability to read accurately, at an appropriate rate and with appropriate expression and phrasing. Fluent reading requires what is called “automaticity.” That means recognizing words automatically, grouping words into meaningful chunks and illustrating such meaning through expression and intonation. Fluency can also be measured by timed readings, but we’re only concerned now with practice and repetition.

Fluent readers can read effortlessly. Their reading sounds like natural speech. They focus attention on ideas in the text, connecting them with their thoughts and personal knowledge. They are able to concentrate on the significance of what they read.

Less fluent readers tend to read more slowly, word by word. Their oral reading can sound hesitant or uncertain. They focus more attention on decoding words as individual items and have little energy left for comprehending the text.

Fluency develops gradually over time and through regular practice. Students who read and re-read orally with guidance become better readers. Repeated oral reading substantially improves word recognition, speed, and accuracy as well as fluency.

Here’s what you can do to help: Read to students in ways that model fluent reading and have students repeatedly read passages back to you. By reading effortlessly and expressively, you let your student know what a fluent reader sounds like and open the way to comprehension.

Pre-reading:

1. Explain to students that it’s important to read smoothly, grouping words together in ways that make sense as when they talk.
2. Give students every opportunity to connect with the material. Skim the text first to identify new or unusual vocabulary. Use flash cards, drawings, miming or a picture dictionary to illustrate the meanings of new words.
3. Do a picture walk through the book to set the scene, identify characters, location or any other new circumstance (i.e. circus, beach, geographic area)

Process Reading:

1. You demonstrate by reading fluently a passage in the book.
2. Have your student re-read the same text several times, following your model each time. This is known as Echo Reading. It may take 3–4 re-readings to achieve fluency of a passage!
3. Guide the student by helping with word pronunciation and meaningful, expressive phrasing each time before the student repeats.
4. Have the student point to the words or phrases you read. When the student reads, you follow and point. This helps with tracking and setting the pace.

Comprehension links:

1. Ask questions to reinforce “chunking” or phrasal reading. As you ask about the where, when, how or whys, the student searches for and re-reads each phrase with meaning which answers the question and promotes fluency and comprehension.
2. Demonstrate and point out the use of punctuation to convey meaning — a questioning voice (?), an excited, enthusiastic voice (!), a pause (,).

Look at the following sentence as an example:

Joe hurried back across the street to try and find the nickel he dropped!

You can ask questions about where he went and why, and you can also wonder where he was heading, what happened, why the nickel was important? Your voice can also illustrate the stress of the situation. Part of our goal is to arouse a student’s eagerness to find things out and to instill the belief that reading matters. Fluent reading provides the freedom for this to happen.

Fluency instruction is useful whenever students don’t have automatic word recognition of materials they read, do not read orally with expression or have poor comprehension of what they do read. If readers can read the words but do not understand, they are not really reading.

Fluency develops from repeated opportunities to read with success. Students should practice with material that is relatively easy — materials they know or can decode easily. Students should be able to read the text with about 95% accuracy, misreading only 1 of every 20 words. (This represents an independent reading level.) If the text is more difficult than that, students will have to focus more on word recognition, which gets in the way of developing fluency.

Good luck with all your efforts. If you try out any of these ideas, please let me know how they work. Next time we’ll examine different aspects of questioning which serve as a catalyst for comprehension.

All the best,
Joan

Looking Back at the 2005 Chanukah Book Drive Kickoff

On December 11 JCL kicked off its annual Chanukah Book Drive at the JCCSF. Joshua Braff, author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, entertained the crowd with passages from his first novel and reminiscences of his childhood as a New Jersey yeshiva boy. All 85+ attendees enjoyed every moment of Braff’s hysterical reading—and we collected more than 250 books for Bay Area public schools and after-school programs in need! Thanks to everyone who attended and donated—especially the planning committee—Rachel Bernstein, Jerilyn Gelt, Naomi Lempert-Lopez, and Bruce McWilliams! We couldn’t have done it without you.

Terrific results from our Hurricane Katrina Book Drive!

Thank you for making our Hurricane Katrina Book Drive a success!

In light of the enormous losses suffered by evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and the trauma experienced by countless families, the Bay Area Jewish Coalition for Literacy launched a successful fundraising effort to buy books for the students who need them most.

After careful consideration, JCL established a direct connection with schools in Baton Rouge, Louisiana which have opened their doors to evacuee children. Our contact there was able to purchase hundreds of new books to donate, and those in Baton Rouge want to express their gratitude for your efforts.

Together, we raised a total of over $2,200!

See photos of the students who benefited from your generous financial contributions

Thank You!

The JCL staff warmly thanks the following:

• Each and every donor to the JCL Chanukah Book Drive!
• The Chanukah Book Drive Kickoff Committee—Rachel Bernstein, Jerilyn Gelt, Naomi Lempert-Lopez, and Bruce McWilliams—for their stellar work on the event.
• Books Inc for partnering with us on the Book Drive!
• Suzan Berns for highlighting the Chanukah Book Drive Kickoff in her column Faces, in the January 20, 2006 edition of j., the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California.